For 30 years UK TV viewers have had access to an online news service that made it possible to watch TV and read the news at the same time. Ceefax, as it is known uses spare lines on a regular TV transmission to deliver text to decoder devices built into UK televisions. The BBC covered the story of its anniversary this week.
I remember getting a teletext-enabled TV for the first time when I was a kid, and what a cavalcade of fun it was to watch the text pages spring up over an episode of Coronotion Street or similar. There was (and still is) some fantastic content on Ceefax (and Oracle, its commercial TV competitor), such as weather and news -- all delivered at no cost to anyone with a television.
My abiding memory, however, is tied to two records: Sinead O'Connor's Am I Not Your Girl? and k.d. lang's Ingenue, which a Ceefax reviewer was so affusive about that I had to go and get it for myself.
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